HILL UNITS CUT REAGAN'S LATIN BUDGET

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302440005-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 15, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: May 3, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/15: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302440005-5
ARTICLE AFFr =
DIN PAG7 i WASHINGTON POST
3 May 1984
Military Aid, Buildings
Hill Units Cut Reagan's Latin Budget
By Joanne Omang and Walter Pincus Rep. William V. Alexander Jr. (D-
Washington Post Staff Writers Ark.), chief deputy maiority whip, told a
A House Armed Services subcommittee yes- news conference that, during a six-day
terday cut from the 1985 budget three major visit to Central America, he found U.S.
military construction projects in Honduras forces in the region "poised for war, and
that the Reagan administration has sought as we have allowed no equal force for peace
part of the growing U.S. presence in Central
America, according to sources involved in the
decision made in closed session. -
At the same time; the House 4ppropriations
Committee, in another blow to administration'
policy in Central America, stripped an other-
wise popular spending measure. of increased
military aid for the government of El Salvador,
guaranteeing a floor fight next week.
The Armed Services subcommittee on mil-
itary construction, chaired by Rep. Ronald V.
Dellums (D-Calif.), ' cut the military construc-
tion projects in Honduras, the sources said,
because the administration has yet to provide
a long-requested detailed outline of all its mil-
itary building plans in Central America. The
sources said the items-eliminated by the sub-
committee include:
? A -$4.3 million Army compound that an
Army data sheet described as "suitable for ex-
tended deployments" of "a company-sized unit
with aircraft" at Honduras' Palmerola Air
Base, from which U.S. aircraft are conducting
military reconnaissance flights- in the region.
The fact sheet said the Palmerola facility is
needed because "temporary field living condi-
tions, acceptable for short stays, are unaccep-
table for indefinite deployments" of U.S.
troops engaged in exercises in Honduras.
? A $1.5 million munitions storage area
at Palmerola designed to handle "iron
bombs and rockets" for use in "tactical
air contingency operations in support of
allies in the region," according to an Air
Force data sheet.
? A $2.9 million Army warehouse,
100,000-gallon fuel storage tank and mu-
nitions storage area at San Lorenzo Air
Force Base. .
An administration official said the
subcommittee action, if not reversed,
would have little impact on the extensive
U.S. military maneuvers in . Central
America. "Whatever exercises are
planned will continue with or without
this," he said. "But we'll try very hard to
get it back."
... ..I am not convinced that the mil-
lions of dollars we havepoured into these
construction sites are. purely in support
of military exercises."
But Rep. Ralph Regula {R-Ohio), who
also went on the trip, said it would take
"a very substantial amount of both mon-
ey and effort" to make the installations
combat-ready. "I have seen much better
facilities at Scout..camps," Regula said.
__In related action, the House Appropri-
ations. Committee, unable to agree on a
military aid package for El.Salvador, de-
cided.instead to strip all Central America
provisions from a grab-bag measure of
other funding actions. It will bring up the
Central America issue on the floor of the
House next week.
The measure, sponsored by committee
Chairman Jamie L. Whitten (D-Miss.),
would have allowed unspecified aid to El
Salvador to continue "at present expen-
diture levels and under existing restric-
tions for 30 days." But Democrats, who
control the committee, argued that Pres-
?ident Reagan already had assumed that
power in. using his emergency funding
authority last month to send at least $32
million in aid to El Salvador.
_ The committee then approved the re-
maining bill, which provides $410 million
for child nutrition, $100 million for sum-
mer youth employment, $66 million for
the Women, Infants and Children food
aid program and $60 million for food aid
to drought-stricken African nations.
Those provisions were the most broad-
ly supported parts of a vehicle that the
Reagan administration once had hoped
would carry its proposed $62 million in
emergency aid to the government of El
Salvador, which is fighting a leftist insur-
gency, and $21 million for aid to, rebels
backed by the Reagan -administration
against the leftist government of nearby
Nicaragua.
That vehicle, which passed the Senate
STAT
last month, lies dormant in the House,
burdened with a score of other less pop-
ular Senate amendments.
In an unusual parliamentary maneu-
ver, Rep. Silvio 0. Conte (R-Mass.) tried
.to pass an instruction to the House to set
up a conference committee meeting with
the Senate on the measure, but was de-
feated, 245 to 159.
Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y;), said he will
offer an amendment adding aid to El
Salvador to the grab-bag aid measure
when it comes to the House floor, prob-
ably next week. "I think there's a bipar-
tisan consensus of Democrats and Re-
publicans who think something should be
done" in El Salvador, he said in an inter-
view.
The action leaves undecided-.the fate
of the' administration's request for its
support of anti-government rebels in Nic-
aragua. Kemp said he had no plans to
propose attaching .that to the Whitten
bill but would keep bis options open.
Meanwhile, former secretary of state
Alexander Haig Jr. told the National
Press Club that he had advised Reagan
acamst t e use of covert action teams
financed and directed by the CIA in Nic-
aragua because "in modern day America
and especia y in this administration,
there ain't nothing secret."
In addition, Haig said, "you can't con-
duct, covert actwrtles which are so sub-
stantial in character that they cannot be
covert."
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/15: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302440005-5